


We're All Right

by zephrene



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-22
Updated: 2010-04-22
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:30:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephrene/pseuds/zephrene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing moment in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We're All Right

Luna watched Harry - or the air where she thought Harry was - as he made his way to Ron and Hermione, then they, too, became invisible. Luna did not need a magic cloak to become invisible in this battle-shocked crowd; she was already forgotten by most of them once she ceased to speak. The room became quickly stifling, with too much emotion crammed into too small a space. Luna wanted nothing more than a quiet place to sit and think. Or more correctly, to sit and not think at all.

Moving with no hurry or urgency to draw attention, Luna left the Great Hall and entered one of the more navigable corridors. The floor and walls were scorched, the suits of armor battered, and a great crack ran through a stained glass window beside a tapestry of ravens. There was a hole burned into one side of the weaving, and that corner had come loose from the wall. 

After a brief glance behind her at the empty, debris-strewn corridor, Luna touched the wall between the ravens and their guardian armor. The brick slid away from her hand into a shadowed recess, and Luna slipped into the gap thus revealed. There was a grinding noise as the bricks returned to their usual position; there had never been noise before. Luna reached out in the darkness and patted the wall. "Poor old thing," she said with quiet sympathy.

She walked several paces into the darkness until she felt the shift in air currents that meant she had reached a larger space. A silent _Lumos_ provided just enough illumination for her to see the damage the battle had wrought on her hidden room. It must have belonged to someone once, long ago, but not even the ghosts seemed to know or care who. There were probably plenty of such rooms all over the castle, hidden until someone thought to look, or had the need. At the moment it looked rather like an earthquake had hit, books tumbled from rickety shelves and cushions strewn across the floor. The over-sized and lumpy chair was knocked on its side, as was the tall candelabrum, but the ancient oak desk had apparently been too heavy or stubborn to overturn.

There had been candles in a basket on the shelf, but the basket was now sitting face-down on the floor. Luna got down on hands and knees and peered under the desk. She could see the candles lying against the far wall, too far to reach, so she whispered, "_Nox_," to free her wand to summon them.

This was an extremely inconvenient moment for someone else to breach her sanctuary, but the sudden harsh crunch of stone on stone could be nothing else but the secret door closing behind a new arrival.

Luna bumped her head on the shelf beside the desk as she scrambled backward, twisting into a sitting position with her wand trained on what she hoped was the doorway.  In the darkness, her own breathing seemed terribly loud. Dim white light suddenly outlined the door frame and spilled across the floor as someone else with a _Lumos_ spell turned the corner. A voice called, "Luna?"

And in the next breath Neville stood in the doorway. He looked somehow dangerous, concerned, and ridiculous all at once, his face battered and robes scorched, his illuminated wand in one hand and the Sword of Gryffindor in the other. He held the sword parallel to the floor, his fingers curled around the base of the blade where it joined the hilt.  Just behind his fingers the edges sharpened, gleaming blue in light of his wand.

Luna collapsed backward onto the floor in relief, relaxing her white-knuckled grip on her wand. "Merlin," she sighed, pressing her free hand to her chest. She took deep calming breaths as her heart rate slowed.

After staring for a moment, Neville visibly collected himself and entered the room. He knelt beside her, laying the sword on the floor near the doorway. "Are you all right?"

Luna nodded. "Fine. Are you all right, Neville?" She reached up to brush his fringe out of his eyes. He was forever brushing it back after detentions, but never cut it. Luna had hidden behind her hair often enough to think she might understand why.

"I was worried. I followed you." He sounded apologetic. "And I wanted away from the crowd. All the - staring." The direction of his gaze moved between her and the sword and back. Then he looked around the room.  "Where are we?"

Luna sat up, and pointed her wand toward the desk. "_Accio_ Luna's candles," she said, and a half-dozen single-day candles with blue and white stripes rolled out of the dust until they bounced off her leg. She set one upright and passed her wand over it to light the wick. It was just about as bright as Neville's _Lumos_. He doused his spell-light at once and slid his wand into his sleeve.

"This is my secret room," Luna explained as she waved her wand to set her chair upright and send its cushions back into place. Another quick spell and the bookcase repaired itself. "I used to hide here, in my first year, and sometimes after." Luna had enjoyed having one place that nobody else knew about, one place from which nothing ever disappeared. "The castle showed it to me." She stood up and set the tall candelabrum upright beside the desk.  There were three branches to it, so she set a candle in each, and the one she had already lit went in the center. With four candles burning, the room was immediately more welcoming, less sinister.

She gave the worn bronze of the candelabrum a final caress before pocketing her wand and turning back to Neville.  He had not gotten up from the floor as the furniture righted itself around him. Now, with neither wand nor sword, staring at his empty hands, he simply looked lost.

Luna bent and took his hand, urging him to his feet. "Neville? Are you sure you're all right?"

His fingers tightened on hers. He looked down at her - and when had he gotten so tall, anyway? - and shrugged. "I don't know," he whispered at last.

She took hold of his other hand. "It's okay," she said. "You don't have to be."

Quite suddenly he pulled her close, hugging her so tightly to him that at first she could barely breathe. She wriggled her arms free enough to embrace him in return, and ran her hands down his back. He was shaking. "It's okay," she repeated, resting her head on his shoulder. "It's okay."

His arms gentled around her at last, and he pulled back enough to see her face. "I thought they had killed you, when you didn't come back," he whispered.

She smiled, and if her smile had a touch of hysteria to it, well, it was only to be expected hours after such a battle. "I'm harder to kill than they think."

And he laughed, as she had hoped he would.

She saw the moment when he realized that he was laughing, when he remembered the others who had died. She ran the backs of her fingers down the side of his face. "It's okay, Neville."

He shook his head, but he took her hand very gently in his and held it to his chest. "They're dead," he said in a strange, bleak voice. "Fred, and Colin, and Eloise, and-"

Luna freed her hand and set two fingers against his lips to stop his recital of names. "I know," she whispered. "We're still allowed to laugh." 

Neville shook his head, his eyes hollow with grief in the candlelight. "It's not right."

Luna pulled him into her arms now, clutching him tightly to her. One of his hands smoothed her hair. She tilted her head so that she whispered against the rough planes of his jaw. "We're still alive."

His hand stopped moving, his fingers curling close around the nape of her neck. It felt like he was holding his breath.

"It's all right to still be alive," she said, her voice catching on a sob. "It's okay." 

She felt him come apart at last and guided him to the chair without ever breaking their embrace. They fit together, her body a cradle for his. She held him through all the violent, shuddering grief he had held inside for hours and days and months gone by, until they were both spent and exhausted.

Luna pressed a kiss to the top of his head as his tremors eased, and felt his arms tighten around her.

"Luna," he said, his voice muffled against her shoulder. "Sorry." 

"Hush," she replied, wiping her eyes on her shirtcuff. "Rest, Neville. Just rest. We'll be all right here." 

Luna stroked his hair until he fell asleep, snoring lightly on her shoulder. It was sometimes hard not to think, but tonight she managed.


End file.
